RIDERS OF THE STORM

[Cookie]

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first off if we are going to run a RIDERS OF THE STORM we need to have trailers on the back of the bikes to carry things like gas to those that are trying to get out of the way of the storm.
there where a lot of cars running out of gas on I 10 and I 12 the trailer would have to also carry water and some power bars and fruit (some of the diabetics forgot to bring food they thought it was going to be a quick exidos.
I know a kiddie trailer will carry over 150 pounds (I use one to carry stuff that is to big for my baskets) so that would be 2 lg 16 gal gas cans and some bottles of water the baskets could carry the fruit and power bars and more water . The only problem is we would have to be armed if we are giving out or carrying gas during an emergency some people turn into mad animals trying to get what they can for free (voice of experience here luckily I had a 44 and was not afraid to use it).

I am ordering 2 solar trickle charger for our 12 volt battery I can order them for about 25.oo (including shipping) . In an emergency we need communication a 12 vt CB radio hooked up to a 12 vt battery with a trickle charger would work and walkie talkies if the bikes are to far out to transmit to the base truckers can relay radio messages (I use to be in a CB Rescue unit when I lived up in Denver).

We have 2 walkie talkies we put a vox on but the noise of the bike was to loud and triggered the vox so now we just use the hammer and talk method when we are on a long run .

PS after Katrina and the fact that Sutan and I where riding our bikes in it we thought that old who song fit just right .

Cookie

 

[bamabikeguy]

COOKIE also wrote yesterday:

Sutan has been working in Chalmett a town just the other side of New Orleans and boy is it getting bad in NO they have less than 1/2 the population and the murder rate is higher than it was when they had a full population .........the Vietnamese part of town was cleaned up and running within a few months of Katrina ,they did not wait for the govoner to ok help, then Nagel decided to use that area of NO as a dumping ground for the city forcing the Vietnamese out of the area after they started getting their lives together.

In Chalmett the mayor there told the red cross not to give food or water to any crew that had Mexicans on it the only place the workers could eat was at the hippy village and the mayor shut that down .

One of the guys on Sutan's crew got a traffic ticket and he went to the PD to pay his ticket and was never heard of again so his buddy went looking for him and he disappeared (their checks are still waiting for them 6 mths later).....The sheriff in Chalmett is on house arrest for bank robbery as he was seen on tape robbing the banks when the storm hit.

But this is about the bikes.....Sutan took one of our old proto type bike down to chalmett when he went down there and one of the weirdest things he did was rescue a 5ft. gator it was stuck in the bottom of a pool he had been stuck in there so long he had lost a lot of his teeth and was weak but still dangerous so they got a rope and some how got it around the gator's tail Sutan got the bike started and pulled the gator out of the pool down the grass to a ditch leading to the swamp area where he released the gator last seen the gator was getting fat and was growing all his teeth.


Cookie
_________________
Not all women wore love beads in the 60's


*Thank you for starting this seperate Hurricane Topic, it is great to have folks with experiences advising naive inlanders such as myself. I'll move my previous Storm idea below, with your "correction" to my Abbey Basement error. pc

 

[bamabikeguy]

On Hurricanes and such

Thanks to Itbenz, I know the Biloxi Bridge is out. Thanks to Cookie, she confirmed my hunch that motored bicycles could be very valuable in catastaphic situations, when the power is out and gas is scarce. We still haven't got many members from the southeast, hopefully I can get additional information from my political and social forums. SHOUT OUT TO THE ALABAMA KOSSACKS!!

That Charleston to Abita Springs route I planned for early Summer '07, meanders about 50 miles north of the coastline. All along that way are blue signs designated HURRICANE ROUTES.

When I watched those Louisiana and Texas traffic jams in 2005, I could visualize riding on those northbound evacuation routes zipping along at 30 mph on my bike, with the valuable papers and photographs in the backpack.

As a livestock owner, I realize it is not as simple as that, and probably I would be one of the guys that sticks around, rides out the storm with Jack Daniels.

Living in North Carolina, I survived Hurricane Hugo, my daughter was maybe 7 or 8 years old then, she still hates stormy weather. Hugo was a "double puncher", it passed headed west by southwest, then looped around Charlotte and hit us a second time.

80-100 year old oak trees blew down both left AND right. So, I know the power of a chain saw and the importance of 24-72 hour emergency adrenalin.

It is my understanding that Mobile Bay is still full of trees and debris, even though it was on the outer edges of Katrina. My Iraqi puppy purchaser (he called back, ordered 2 pups, btw) lives in Bayou La Batre, of Forrest Gump fame. I heard shrimp boats were in trees down there, gotta check it out.

There were towns I saw, like Nashville and Albany, Dothan and Vidalia that looked to me like pivot points, where emergency headquarters for Red Cross, Wal-Mart, the Baptists and Methodists Hot Soup folks, the Salvation Army donation depots, would all congregate.

So, if a patrol or a troop of ten or twenty "Hurricane Scouts" from this forum wanted to volunteer for their "contribution to society", in my thinking, we could toss our tents and chainsaws in southbound Wal Mart trucks, or in the back of a Red Cross members pickup, and trust that the gear got to the "destination", allow us freedom to operate and prove a point.

From there, on bikes, carrying walkie talkies, valuable emergency operations could be carried out, especially for the "poor folks way out in the country". Always keep that in mind, there is a 20 percent fraction of the population that has a fragile "window of opportunity". The elderly, the handicapped, the hard headed folks that can't evacuate are the ones we have to priortize.

On the return from Amelia Island Florida in March 2006, I camped 18 miles east of Nashville Georgia, the flat farmland was impressive. When I got to town and gassed up, I asked "Wheres the closest Mom & Pop diner?" I was directed to the "Dinner Bell", where it was PACKED on a Saturday morning, they were having their agricultural awards breakfast, being the #1 agricultural county in Georgia.

I squeeeeeezed in, smack in the middle table, next to that video guy that was taping the event, and another table heard me say "I'm from Cullman County, we're #1 in Alabama".

Well, that got my breakfast "on the house". Of course, I was expected to "say a few words as the Alabama ambassador", so I did, ending my 3 minute spiel with a pretty good Georgia joke that brought groans, hoots and hollers. (The joke was SO good that minutes later a biscuit hit me in the back of the head).

At that breakfast were 3 state legislators, and the city/county commissioners, and the state ag chairman, so afterwards we had a long demonstration out on the sidewalk where the bike was parked.

Admittedly, the most important aspect of Motorized Biking is HAVING FUN IN THE SADDLE. Getting the message out, "without having my Crimson Tide hat knocked off by a biscuit" is the reason I propagate in small town newspapers.

We all know how the discussions go when we stop at gas stations and diners in our travels. When folks see the bike zipping along the shoulder, often they pull over and I take a few minutes to explain. Hopefully they can read this pre-Mobile trip "multi-tasking" preparation I'm doing, and see how Fire Departments and EMT's could have motorized bikes ready for hurricane season.

When I watched Katrina get fouled up by FEMA, I recollected the "jester in the parking lot" moment in 1977, where we got into the "nuclear bomb shelter" built underneath St. Bernard Church, big enough to hold 500 people. Somebody (not me) grabbed a box of "crackers" stacked against the wall, brought them to my room (I was "summer dorm proctor", a fox in the henhouse summer).
When the first can of crackers was opened, a cloud of green moldy gas burst out. This was the "FOOD" nuclear survivors were going to "share", and we all knew "we are being screwed".

Of course, I also learned from good old Father Aloysius that a LOT of catholic construction was done in the Kennedy administration, so when a storm is brewing, head for the Abbey basement.

Point being, folks can depend on neighbors and friends first, and FEMA is a husk of itself nowadays, run by political hacks and frat boys. Motorized bikes are "grassroots", all the aspects, like HURRICANE VEHICLES, can't be related in short speils at breakfast, or gas stations, or even news articles. Word of mouth is THE best advertising.

I just thank MB.com for the opportunity to explain all the potentials that have occured to me, then direct folks to this site, let them think of their own situations and opportunities.

Notice how covertly I got "Georgia" and "crackers" in the same article??? Yeah, thanx for the biscuit, bulldogs!

COOKIE then corrected me on my "storm hideaway"

Another thing to rember if you are going to take shelter DO NOT SHELTER IN A KENNEDY SHELTER UNDERGROUND in area where you can get hit with a tidel surge and make sure you have at least 2 ways to get out do not shelter in an attic unless you take a ax and have food and water stashed up there for at least a month.

Cookie
_________________
Not all women wore love beads in the 60's

So, NOW, I will lug my bike and gear UP to the belltower. ty

 

[Cookie]

FEMA rant

that is better than having it encased in mud and muck with you with it in the bomb shelter and no one knowing you went down there ......image a fossilized bike and rider found at sometime in the future LOL (a bike centaur).

No kidding Sutan and his crew are still finding bits and parts of people and animals and yes they still have cars and boats stuck in the middle of the roads and stuck in trees.

I want to set one thing straight and make a major B**ch also.... FEMA did and is doing one hell of a good job it is the politicians down here that are slowing everything up FEMA and the RED CROSS was posted out of the state ready to roll in but had to have permission of the Governor but she had to think about it for 24 hrs.
The Mayor of NO had 200 busses that could roll (with the new busses even I can drive one of them) but they sat. AMTRACK offered to take people north but the people where not told to leave the train left empty the teamsters offered to move people out of NO but where told no.
The mentality of the populous in NO was and is the government will take care of me it is a WELLFAIR STATE and has been one since the civil war and the freedman act even now rather than getting out there and working to get themselves back a lot of that "stuff" from NO wants the government to keep paying their rent and food. The gov. is going to do it. Just in our area the violent crime rate has doubled and I live in a small town out side of Baton Rouge we call the NO people the 504's (it is the area code) I have had 504's come to my shop and want me to do work for them for free and they had a bad attitude , this is over a yr later. They say "I was in Katrina" well guess what so was I.
Katrina hurt us but we dug in and worked our way back better and stronger and we are old disabled veterans not some one in their 20's or 30's that have everything handed to them. We did not get a hand out ...insurance paid me 500.00 for my business losses (including the machines I lost and that would not replace one of them)

People in chalmett will not work to clean their houses and their town Sutan has to hire Mexicans because they are the only ones that will work. "I GOT TO WAIT FOR MY FEMA CHECK" as they live in their FEMA trailer getting their FEMA food and electricity

FEMA has done a hell of a job but they get the brunt of the abuse they are being used as a political foot ball and if I was them I would have walked out of this state a long time ago and told the governor to sink or swim.

Cookie